Author Topic: Places to live  (Read 2506 times)

StetsTerhune

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Places to live
« on: March 15, 2015, 01:41:08 PM »
My wife and I have been "homeless" (traveling and doing short-medium rentals various places) for the last 6 months.  We enjoy this lifestyle enormously, but it does get stressful to have something lined up all the time. So we're looking to buy a place to use as a base. Somewhere we could live ~6 months per year and travel the rest. I've been reading old forum topics here and generally searching the internet for ideas, but want to hear as many ideas of places to look into as possible.

Here's what we're looking for:
Musts --
Proximity (less than an hour or so) to a major airport -- my wife has to travel internationally for work quite a bit and needs somewhere she can fly out of relatively inexpensively/conveniently. Not saying a huge international airport, just somewhere we can make good connections to an airport she can fly direct to Europe/Asia.
Hiking -- ideally decent walks I can do in and around town plus more substantial stuff I can do within an hour or two drive.

Wants--
convenient to skiing
convenient to some sort of body of water
low cost of living -- the cheaper the better, obviously, but we're not super low spenders and I'd rather be someplace I like than somewhere very cheap.

Stipulations--
We don't need a place we can find jobs -- We both currently work remotely. I'm essentially FI and just waiting for the right moment to retire. My wife likes her job and it is so flexible that it doesn't constrain any of our decisions.
We're only planning to live there 6 months a year, which opens up some places that are either too warm or too cold for some parts of the year.

Here's the list we've put together so far --
Manchester or Concord, NH
Denver area
Boise, ID
Salem, OR
Olympia, WA
Asheville, NC

I don't know anything about them but from reading other threads I've added Chattanooga, TN and Pittsburgh.

I'm putting together a spreadsheet to compare all these places and we're planning on taking a few months this spring/summer visiting some areas, so I would really appreciate any ideas on places to add to our consideration

MikeBear

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Re: Places to live
« Reply #1 on: March 15, 2015, 01:43:31 PM »

Abe

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Re: Places to live
« Reply #2 on: March 15, 2015, 04:17:40 PM »
Asheville is nice, but closest good airport is Charlotte, 2 hours away. Lake James is nice for water-skiing, though. It does meet the rest of your requirements. I think overall you would love it, and I definitely plan on having a small place there when I retire.

Joan-eh?

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Re: Places to live
« Reply #3 on: March 15, 2015, 04:21:56 PM »
Happy to report that from south to north, the east and west cost of canada are absolutely delightful 6 months of the year, festivals, foods, outdoors, sun! Love it! The other six....well....